Eating the Starters: The Mainstreaming of Populism in Post-Communist Poland, 2001 – 2011

Populism played a vital role in the reshaping of the Polish party system during the second decade of transition. The emergence of a three-party ‘populist coalition’ owed more to contingent factors than design. Nevertheless, the emotional and divisive rhetoric of the coalition and its aggressive pursuit of a binary ‘good versus evil’ political narrative had a significant effect on party system change at the supply side, catalysing the shift from a dominant line of competition based on the historical ‘regime divide’ to a divide based on competing conceptions of the politics of transition. This resulted in the elimination of minor populist parties and the apparent consolidation of a ‘post-Solidarity’ party system, with the formerly powerful post-communist successor party reduced to minor-party status. However, the electoral response to this shift was more ambiguous, suggesting that the party system remained open to further realignment.